Impossible Worlds focuses on an exciting new theory in philosophy, with applications in metaphysics, logic, and the theory of meaning. Its central topic is: how do we meaningfully talk and reason about situations which, unbeknownst to us, are impossible? This issue emerges as a central problem in contemporary philosophical accounts of meaning, information, knowledge, belief, fiction, conditionality, and counterfactual supposition. The book is written bytwo of the leading philosophers in the area and contains original research of relevance to professional philosophers (...) and logicians working in metaphysics, philosophy of language, formal logic, and adjacentareas. (shrink)

A hyperintensional epistemic logic would take the contents which can be known or believed as more fine-grained than sets of possible worlds. I consider one objection to the idea: Williamson’s Objection from Overfitting. I propose a hyperintensional account of propositions as sets of worlds enriched with topics: what those propositions, and so the attitudes having them as contents, are about. I show that the account captures the conditions under which sentences express the same content; that it can be pervasively applied (...) in formal and mainstream epistemology; and that it is left unscathed by the objection. (shrink)

While corporate social responsibility (CSR) is becoming a mainstream issue for many organizations, most of the research to date addresses CSR in large businesses rather than in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), because it is too often considered a prerogative of large businesses only. The role of SMEs in an increasingly dynamic context is now being questioned, including what factors might affect their socially responsible behaviour. The goal of this paper is to make a comparison of SME and large firm (...) CSR strategies. Furthermore, size of the firm is analyzed as a factor that influences specific choices in the CSR field, and studied by means of a sample of 3,680 Italian firms. Based on a multi-stakeholder framework, the analysis provides evidence that large firms are more likely to identify relevant stakeholders and meet their requirements through specific and formal CSR strategies. (shrink)

We reply to various arguments by Otavio Bueno and Edward Zalta (‘Object Theory and Modal Meinongianism’) against Modal Meinongianism, including that it presupposes, but cannot maintain, a unique denotation for names of fictional characters, and that it is not generalizable to higher-order objects. We individuate the crucial difference between Modal Meinongianism and Object Theory in the former’s resorting to an apparatus of worlds, possible and impossible, for the representational purposes for which the latter resorts to a distinction between two kinds (...) of predication, exemplification and encoding. We show that encoding has fewer forerunners in the history of philosophy than Bueno and Zalta want, and that there’s a reason why the notion has been found baffling by some. (shrink)

Starting from the ‘Dewey Lectures’, Rawls presents his conception of justice within a contextualist framework, as an elaboration of the basic ideas embedded in the political culture of liberal-democratic societies. But how are these basic ideas to be justified? In this article, I reconstruct and criticize Rawls’s strategy to answer this question. I explore an alternative strategy, consisting of a genealogical argument of a pragmatic kind – the kind of argument provided by authors like Bernard Williams, Edward Craig and Miranda (...) Fricker. I outline this genealogical argument drawing on Rawls’s reconstruction of the origins of liberalism. Then, I clarify the conditions under which this kind of argument maintains vindicatory power. I claim that the argument satisfies these conditions and that pragmatic genealogy can thus partially vindicate the basic ideas of liberal-democratic societies. (shrink)

I discuss paradoxes of implication in the setting of a proof-conditional theory of meaning for logical constants. I argue that a proper logic of implication should be not only relevant, but also constructive and nonmonotonic. This leads me to select as a plausible candidate LL, a fragment of linear logic that differs from R in that it rejects both contraction and distribution.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has acquired an unquestionably high degree of relevance for a large number of different actors. Among others, academics and practitioners are developing a wide range of knowledge and best practices to further improve socially responsible competences. Within this context, one frequent question is according to what theory should general knowledge of CSR be developed, and in particular the relationship between CSR and small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs). This paper suggests that research on large firms should be (...) based on stakeholder theory, while research on CSR among SMEs should be based on the concept of social capital. This paper first provides a theoretical and practical perspective on CSR today; the focus then shifts to the specific literature on CSR and SMEs; some data and information follow on SMEs in Europe and Italy; finally, some conclusions and questions for future research are suggested. (shrink)

In this paper we reply to arguments of Kroon (“Characterization and Existence in Modal Meinongianism”. Grazer Philosophische Studien 86, 23–34) to the effect that Modal Meinongianism cannot do justice to Meinongian claims such as that the golden mountain is golden, and that it does not exist.

In the tradition of substructural logics, it has been claimed for a long time that conjunction and inclusive disjunction are ambiguous:we should, in fact, distinguish between ‘lattice’ connectives (also called additive or extensional) and ‘group’ connectives (also called multiplicative or intensional). We argue that an analogous ambiguity affects the quantifiers. Moreover, we show how such a perspective could yield solutions for two well-known logical puzzles: McGee’s counterexample to modus ponens and the lottery paradox.

opinionated survey paper to be published in the Blackwell’s Philosophy Compass.

Prominent theories in moral psychology maintain that a core aspect of moral competence is the ability to distinguish moral norms, which derive from universal principles of justice and fairness, from conventional norms, which are contingent on a specific group consensus. The present study investigated the psychological bases of the moral-conventional distinction by manipulating the framing of the test question, the authority’s license, and the historical context. Participants evaluated moral and conventional transgressions by answering an ‘okay for you’ test question (i.e., (...) judging according to their opinion) or an ‘okay in context’ test question (i.e., judging by imagining being a contemporary of the story protagonist). In evaluating moral transgressions that happened in a distant context or with the authority’s license, most of the participants condemned the violations when responding to the ‘okay for you’ test question, but did not do so when responding to the ‘okay in context’ test question. A similar effect of the question framing was found also on scenarios presenting conventional violations suggesting that subtle changes in the framing of the test question can influence people’s evaluations of both moral and conventional prototypical transgressions. We propose that these effects indicate the presence of moral and conventional construals of social actions that are highly flexible and context-sensitive. (shrink)

In a famous and controversial paper, B. H. Slater has argued against the possibility of paraconsistent logics. Our reply is centred on the distinction between two aspects of the meaning of a logical constant *c* in a given logic: its operational meaning, given by the operational rules for *c* in a cut-free sequent calculus for the logic at issue, and its global meaning, specified by the sequents containing *c* which can be proved in the same calculus. Subsequently, we use the (...) same strategy to counter Quine's meaning variance argument against deviant logics. In a nutshell, we claim that genuine rivalry between (similar) logics *L* and *L'* is possible whenever each constant in *L* has the same operational meaning as its counterpart in *L'* although differences in global meaning arise in at least one case. (shrink)

In this article, we show how the phenomenon of self-deception when adequately analyzed, can be incorporated into a predictive processing framework. We describe four strategies by which a subject may become self-deceived to account for typical cases of self-deception. We then argue that the four strategies can be modeled within this framework, under the assumption that a satisfying account of motivation is possible within predictive processing. Finally, we outline how we can ground this assumption by discussing how such a systematic (...) model of motivation may be developed using the distinction between a world-model and a self-model. (shrink)

For four decades, research on the role and responsibilities of business in society has centered on the business case for corporate social responsibility (CSR) and an increasing number of studies on the corporate social performance (CSP)—corporate financial performance (CFP) link emerged leading to controversial results. Heeding the call for a deeper understanding of the mechanisms linking certain CSR efforts to certain performance outcomes, this study provides a stakeholder-based organizing framework rooted in an extensive review of existing literature on the link (...) between CSP and CFP. In so doing, we aim at guiding research and practice toward less simplistic understandings of the CSP–CFP connection, thus advancing the debate over the consequences of voluntary integrating CSR into business operations and into relationships with stakeholders. By disentangling specific drivers and outcomes of the CSP–CFP link, we underline the importance of setting clear boundaries and specifying levels of analysis to generate comparable results. (shrink)

In his famous work on vagueness, Russell named “fallacy of verbalism” the fallacy that consists in mistaking the properties of words for the properties of things. In this paper, I examine two (clusters of) mainstream paraconsistent logical theories – the non-adjunctive and relevant approaches –, and show that, if they are given a strongly paraconsistent or dialetheic reading, the charge of committing the Russellian Fallacy can be raised against them in a sophisticated way, by appealing to the intuitive reading of (...) their underlying semantics. The meaning of “intuitive reading” is clarified by exploiting a well-established distinction between pure and applied semantics. If the proposed arguments go through, the dialetheist or strong paraconsistentist faces the following Dilemma: either she must withdraw her claim to have exhibited true contradictions in a metaphysically robust sense – therefore, inconsistent objects and/or states of affairs that make those contradictions true; or she has to give up realism on truth, and embrace some form of anti-realistic (idealistic, or broadly constructivist) metaphysics. Sticking to the second horn of the Dilemma, though, appears to be promising: it could lead to a collapse of the very distinction, commonly held in the literature, between a weak and a strong form of paraconsistency – and this could be a welcome result for a dialetheist. (shrink)

Russell’s type theory has been the standard property theory for years, relying on rigid type distinctions at the grammatical level to circumvent the paradoxes of predication. In recent years it has been convincingly argued by Bealer, Cochiarella, Turner and others that many linguistic and ontological data are best accounted for by using a type-free property theory. In the spirit of exploring alternatives and “to have as many opportunities as possible for theory comparison”, this paper presents another type-free property theory, to (...) be called P*, intended for applications in Montague-style natural language semantics and formal ontology. The theory is philosophically grounded on Gupta’s and Belnap’s revision theory of definitions and its basic idea is viewing predication (exemplification) as a ‘circular concept’ that can be captured by circular definitions. The paper has the following fourteen sections: (1) Introduction; (2) Formal type-free property theory; (3) Applying RTD [revision theory of definitions] to exemplification; (4) The system P*; (5) Some features of P*; (6) A comparison with Turner’s system; (7) Entailment and P*; (8) P* and natural language semantics; (9) Noun phrases; (10) The need for type-freedom in semantics; (11) Arithmetic in P*; (12) Arithmetic in PN*; (13) Complexity of P*; (14) Conclusion, and acknowledgments. (shrink)

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is becoming a mainstream issue as both researchers and managers are realizing its importance, but knowledge gaps persist. In particular, the processes underlying the adoption of responsible managerial practices and the effects associated with them are still at the centre of intense debate. Not surprisingly, managers expect formalized procedures that might influence corporate managerial processes and especially corporate strategies. Given the growing emphasis on the integration of CSR into corporate strategy, the purpose of this qualitative study (...) is to explore the antecedents of this process and the dynamics underlying it. We focus on a medium-sized, family-owned Italian company, SABAF SpA. We find that: the beliefs and value systems of entrepreneurs play a fundamental role in shaping a sustainable corporate strategy; the importance of the relationship between social performance and financial performance depends to some extent on the kind of competitive strategy that a company has selected; and people need to be aware of it – that is, CSR strategies must be explicit and codified into specific managerial procedures. (shrink)

In this article I investigate what the Stoic doctrine of the two principles, God and matter, owes to Plato. I discuss recent scholarly views to the effect that the Stoics were influenced by Old Academic interpretations of the Timaeus and argue that, although the Timaeus probably did play a role in the genesis of the Stoic doctrine, some role was also played by a dualist theory of flux set forth in the etymologies of the Cratylus. I also discuss Theophrastus’ account (...) of Plato’s achievements in physics (fr. 230 FHS&G) and the report of Old Academic physics contained in Cicero’s Academica, 1. 24–9, and commonly taken to go back to Antiochus of Ascalon, and I show that those reports too are likely to have been influenced by the Cratylus. (shrink)

According to a well-established interpretive line, the Benthamic judge would be allowed no room for autonomous calculations of utility and his or her task would only be that of mechanically applying substantive law, which expresses the legislator's will. For Gerald Postema, in contrast, Bentham's judge would be granted ample power to decide cases by directly applying the principle of utility. This article criticizes both views, by showing that a adjudication was for Bentham utterly impossible, although this does not mean that (...) judges should be free to decide according to direct utility calculations. Judges must be the tutors of the citizens’ expectations, which, under a system of statute law, will focus on the code. However, they can avoid suboptimality in cases where applying a general rule would not maximize utility, without preponderant damage for law-induced expectations: Bentham's suggestion is that they do so by proposing amendments of the code to the legislature. (shrink)

Journal Name: Semiotica Issue: Ahead of print.

In our everyday life, we have the genuine feeling that when something we use works very well, we forget that we are doing something that is mediated by something else. It happens when we read through our glasses, or when we drive home, or when we play guitar. In all those cases, it can be said that the device becomes an extension of our body, or that we have incorporated it. In this paper I want to discuss the extension/incorporation dichotomy (...) as presented in contemporary cognitive sciences. I will present the state of the art in the debate in order to promote a methodological shift, namely to adopt two concept borrowed from Material Engagement Theory developed by Lambros Malafouris. By advocating the concepts of temporality and metaplasticity, I will argue for two different but related things: 1) extension and incorporation don’t have to be conceived only spatially, but temporally. This shift leads to two distinctive implications: first, the sooner two entities establish a prosthetic contact, the higher the chances to reach incorporation; second, extension temporally precedes incorporation; the former being an early-staged phenomenon of – a condition of possibility for – the latter. 2) Such a temporal perspective is at the base of metaplasticity, which describes, in the context of MET, the constant, co-constitutive loop between humans and things: metaplasticity deflates the privileged role traditionally attributed to the subject in the making of phenomenal experience. Finally, I will discuss extension and incorporation in media theory, relying on the concept of radical mediation. (shrink)

Modal Meinongianism is the most recent neo-Meinongian theory. Its main innovation consists in a Comprehension Principle which, unlike other neo-Meinongian approaches, seemingly avoids limitations on the properties that can characterize objects. However, in a recent paper A. Sauchelli has raised an objection against modal Meinongianism, to the effect that properties and relations involving reference to worlds at which they are instantiated, and specifically to the actual world or parts thereof, force a limitation of its Comprehension Principle. The theory, thus, is (...) no better off than other neo-Meinongian views in this respect. This article shows that the notion part of actuality in Sauchelli’s paper is ambiguous from the modal Meinongian viewpoint. Accordingly, his objection splits into two, depending on its disambiguation. It is then explained how neither interpretation forces modal Meinongianism to limit its Comprehension Principle. A third problem connected to Sauchelli’s objection is addressed: how to account for our felicitously referring to nonexistent objects via descriptions that embed reference to properties not actually instantiated by the objects. Overall, the replies to these difficulties provide good insights into the workings of the new Meinongian theory. (shrink)

Infallibilism and apriorism are still influential in the philosophy of social science. Infallibilists about human kinds claim that there are features of institutional entities about which we cannot possibly be wrong. But infallibilism is not implied by the theory of collective intentionality that supposedly grounds it. Moreover, it fails to account for the mode of existence of important institutional kinds, including the paradigmatic example of money.

Kant’s philosophy is notoriously based on the dichotomy between the phenomenal and the noumenal world. This dichotomy digs a rift across human nature by separating the animal and the rational parts of it, its heteronomous and autonomous components, duty and self-love. Human beings, for Kant, inhabit both worlds. Such a dychotomy, according to Sasha Mudd, gives rise to two forms of alienation: moral alienation (the estrangement of the heteronomous agent, motivated by happiness and inclinations, from a morality perceived as alien, (...) foreign, and hardly motivating) and practical alienation (the estrangement of the autonomous moral agent from her empirical and heteronomous dimension – her projects, desires, aspirations, inclinations, and so on). On Mudd’s account, Kant successfully escape the first kind of alienation through his doctrine of respect. Here I argue, contra Mudd, that there are at least two ways in which Kant leaves moral agents morally alienated, i.e., alienated from morality itself. (shrink)

Negli ultimi due anni sono stati pubblicati due importanti libri sul progresso morale: 'Moral Progress' di Philp Kitcher e 'A Better Ape' di Victor Kumar e Richmond Campbell. In questa nota critica, recensisco entrambi i libri e problematizzo il modo in cui cercano rispettivamente di legare tra loro il tema del progresso morale con la teoria dell'evoluzione.

In Soph. 237b7–239a11 Plato lays out a sequence of arguments that are generally considered homogenous. An analysis of each argument can shed light on the need to differentiate their respective nature. Firstly, it will be shown that the arguments do not work only at the linguistic level, contrary to the way these passages are interpreted by most of commentators. The meta–linguistic nature of the third argument will be particularly emphasised. Secondly, it will be argued that the three arguments follow each (...) other according to a crescendo. The implications of this argumentative structure will be specifically appreciated. Both these results of the analysis induce to attribute a crucial importance to the notion of medamos on: the arguments do not aim to definitively exclude the possibility of a Parmenidean non–being; they play a positive role within the inquiry of the Stranger of Elea, inasmuch the thematisation of Parmenidean non–being is seriously taken into account and embraced at this stage of the dialogue. In fact it is only through this dialectical step that the Stranger gains the chance to proceed in the direction of a relational ontology and a new concept of non–being. The positive role played by the medamos on presupposes that this expression and the equivalent ones are not mere absurdities and can find place in the Platonic use of language; this implies that the notion of medamos on must have a justification in the framework of Platonic relational ontology and conception of language. The consideration of this aspect eventually gives the opportunity to return to the three arguments and present an explanation of their positioning in that stage of the dialogue. (shrink)

After an introduction in which I rehearse some of the main elements of Stoic physics and psychology, I set out the evidence for the Stoic doctrine that the individual soul is both analogous to the cosmic soul and a part of it, as was held by the early exponents of the school (Section I). I argue that the doctrine threatened to land the Stoics in trouble, unless they were ready to qualify it by applying to it certain distinctions (Section II). (...) Then I consider the doctrine’s historical origins, discussing several possible antecedents of it, with a focus on a Socratic report in Xenophon and on Plato’s dialogues, and showing that the Stoics went beyond all their predecessors (Section III). After this historical excursus I turn to examine some of the arguments advanced by the early Stoics to prove that the cosmos has a soul, including one which compares the relation between the cosmos and the individual human beings to that between a father and his offspring (Section IV). This leads me to analyse in more detail this comparison, which occurs also in other contexts and is sometimes problematically connected with the notion that the individual soul is a part of the cosmic soul (Section V). One of the texts which are relevant to this issue, a report in Sextus Empiricus, is the object of a separate discussion in the final Appendix. (shrink)

Se la tradizione continentale, da Nietzsche a Foucault, ha sottolineato le implicazioni critiche e destabilizzanti del metodo genealogico, gli approcci analitici hanno dimostrato che esso può anche offrire sostegno ai propri oggetti di indagine: norme comportamentali, pratiche, concetti e così via. Un resoconto genealogico, per esempio, può avere un carattere giustificativo quando individua una relazione funzionale necessaria tra il concetto o la pratica in esame e bisogni umani abbastanza fondamentali. La questione che voglio affrontare riguarda le presunte capacità giustificative di (...) questo tipo di spiegazioni genealogiche. In che misura modificano davvero lo spazio delle ragioni? Sostengo che la loro portata normativa e valutativa è variabile e che l'esame di alcuni casi limite aiuta a dimostrarlo. Più specificamente, ritengo che in alcuni casi le ragioni offerte attraverso queste spiegazioni siano ragioni non tanto per giustificare l'uso di certi concetti o pratiche, quanto per giustificare coloro che li vivono. (shrink)

Konolige''s technical notion of belief based on deduction structures is briefly reviewed and its usefulness for the design of artificial agents with limited representational and deductive capacities is pointed out. The design of artificial agents with more sophisticated representational and deductive capacities is then taken into account. Extended representational capacities require in the first place a solution to the intensional context problems. As an alternative to Konolige''s modal first-order language, an approach based on type-free property theory is proposed. It considers (...) often neglected issues, such as the need for a more general account of thede dicto-de re distinction, and quasi-indicators. Extended deductive capacities require a subdivision of Konolige''s notion of belief into two distinct technical notions,potential anddispositional belief. The former has to do with what an artificial agent could in principle come to actively believe, given enough time and its specific logical competence; the latter with what an agent can be assumed to believe with respect to a specific goal to be fulfilled. (shrink)

How can we investigate the foundations of consciousness? In addressing this question, we will focus on the two main strategies that authors have adopted so far. On the one hand, there is research aimed at characterizing a specific content, which should account for conscious states. We may call this the content approach. On the other hand, one finds the processing approach, which proposes to look for a particular way of processing to account for consciousness.. Our aim, in this paper, is (...) to develop arguments for the latter approach. We focus on a criticism of Jesse Prinz’s AIR theory of consciousness. We have chosen Prinz’s theory because it incorporates features of both the content and processing approaches, and discussing it will therefore allow us to compare the advantages and downsides of both. Our argument will focus in particular on the notion of intermediate-level. We will discuss how Prinz characterizes the intermediate-level according to a content approach, and argue that such a characterization is inadequate. Finally, we will argue in favor of processing approach to the problem of consciousness, which also accounts for the massive interaction of top-down and bottom-up processes in the brain. Even though consciousness remains an unsolved riddle, we claim that this is the best path towards a solution. (shrink)

The governmental restriction due to COVID-19 pandemic led to Italian Universities moving teaching from face-to-face, to online. This represented an unexpected transition from traditional learning to what can be considered “e-learning.” This, together with the psychological distress that may be associated with the experience of lockdown, might have affected students' performance. It was hypothesised that grit may be a protective factor in such situations. Indeed, compared to their less “gritty” peers, individuals with higher levels of grit are expected to exhibit (...) greater persistence in the pursuit of goals despite setbacks. Within educational contexts, grit is portrayed as a potentially important influence on outcomes such as achievement level, retention and probability of graduation. A longitudinal study was conducted using an online survey in order to assess the moderated mediation effect of grit on students' achievement. One hundred seventy-six undergraduate students from two universities in the north of Italy participated in the survey. The results showed that grit affects students' grades in final exams; perceived self-efficacy in the management of complex problems had a mediation effect on grades, while psychological distress moderated the first part of the mediation process. These novel findings extended our knowledge regarding the role of grit in academic performance investigating for the first time the role of self-efficacy and psychological distress in a learning carried out entirely online. (shrink)

Peirce seems to maintain two incompatible theses: that a sentence is multiply analyzable into subject and predicate, and that a sentence is uniquely analyzable as a combination of rhemata of first intention and rhemata of second intention. In this paper it is argued that the incompatibility disappears as soon as we distinguish, following Dummett’s work on Frege, two distinct notions of analysis: ‘analysis’ proper, whose purpose is to display the manner in which the sense of a sentence is determined by (...) the senses of its constituent parts, and ‘decomposition’, which is the process of dividing a sentence into a predicate and a subject, and whose purpose is to both to explain how quantified sentences are constructed and to evidence a pattern within a sentence which it shares with other sentences. (shrink)

In De int. 9 Aristotle argues that some declarative sentences are neither true nor false. This raises the problem of how we should understand the words of ch. 4, which introduces the declarative sentence as ‘that in which being true or being false holds’. In this paper I remove the contradiction by arguing that in ch. 4 Aristotle does not intend to claim that *all* declarative sentences are either true or false, but rather that *only* they are either true or (...) false, unlike other kinds of sentence; I defend the soundness of this interpretation on the linguistic and textual level; and I show how we can make good philosophical sense of it. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is a reassessment of Peirce’s doctrine of symbol. The paper discusses a common reading of Peirce’s doctrine, according to which all and only symbols are conventional signs. Against this reading, it is argued that neither are all Peircean symbols conventional, nor are all conventional signs Peircean symbols. Rather, a Peircean symbol is a general sign, i. e., a sign that represents a general object.

Questions represent a crucial tool of interaction between parents and children from a very early age. This study aims to investigate which function – argumentative or explanatory – most characterizes Why-questions asked by children to their parents in a natural setting such as mealtimes at home. Why-questions asked by 13 children – eight girls and five boys aged between three and seven years – coming from 10 middle- to upper-middle-class Swiss and Italian families with a high socio-cultural level were analyzed. (...) In the corpus, the explanatory function largely characterizes children’s Why-questions. Questions we observed play fundamentally an educational role, since they favor the acquisition of new information and the transmission from parents to children of parental behavioral models. The argumentative Why-questions, less frequently asked by children in our sample, are also important from an educational point of view. By these questions children challenge their parents to make clear the reasons behind their opinions, suggestions, rules and prescriptions, which are often largely implicit. Altogether, the results of this study indicate that both the explanatory and argumentative types of children’s Why-questions have a knowledge-seeking function, that is, children asking such questions are seeking knowledge of something. (shrink)

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is gaining momentum in the business world, but several issues continue to challenge managers in charge of sustainability. Supply chain management is one area in which CSR-related activities could potentially drive the process of sustainability within firms. This case presents the way that illycaffè, an Italian coffee producer, has approached CSR. Since 1991, the company has focused on developing a new relationship with Brazilian coffee producers based on networking translated into knowledge transfer—Brazilian producers became responsible for (...) their operations all along the supply line—and innovation translated into quality—one supplier talks about how illycaffè persuaded him he was capable of producing a Ferrari among coffees instead of a Fiat. These two factors not only drive the supplier relationship, but also serve as the drivers of illycaffè’s sustainability strategy. Lessons for managers relate to benefits for the business, for society and for stakeholders, and questions arise about how to replicate illycaffè’s success and create value through values. (shrink)

Understanding Institutions offers a theory that is able to unify the two dominant approaches in the scientific and philosophical literature on institutions. Moreover, using the ‘rules-in-equilibrium’ theory, it tackles several ancient puzzles in the philosophy of social science.